DHS Supports the Right of (Ridiculously Ineffective) Self-Defense

Via Jordan Rushie on Twitter we get this stunning video from DHS on how to survive a particular kind of deadly event...

Pro-Tip to #GunControl Types: Do Not Pick a Convicted Rapist or Terrorist as Your Spokesmen (And How Gun Control is Like Immigration Control)

Meet Jerome McCorry.  He is a minister and president of two charitable organizations: the Adams Project and Ceasefire Dayton.  The Adams Project is about reforming criminals into being good members of society, and Ceasefire Dayton is devoted to peace in the community.  Both are, on their faces, worthy causes.

And he is an advocate of gun control.  For instance, Ohio’s WHIO TV’s website has video of him talking about gun control.  I can’t embed it, so let me suggest instead you go there and view it. talking about gun control.  And if you can’t, here are some choice quotes:

“We know that guns are being sold on the floor inside Hara Arena illegally” said Jerome McCorry. “No background checks no identification of any kind.”

McCorry said “AK-47s and M16s are not gonna be used for hunting, they’re not going to be used to protect anybody. These are the weapons that are coming back and being used in mass murders and mass killings.”

And here he is on Dayton’s WDTN News website:

Oh My... Charles Johnson is Now Doubling Down

Or maybe that is tripling down?  I mean you could argue that his defense in the comments of his own post constituted “doubling down,” so this would be arguably tripling down.  Still, however you count it, in a fresh new post entitled Yes, the Father of a Murdered Newtown Child Was Heckled by Gun Nuts Chuckie basically stands behind Lawrence O’Donnell’s ridiculous, idiosyncratic definition of “heckle.”  Yes, really.  After showing the clip I showed you in the last post, he says: “I’m not always a fan of Lawrence O’Donnell, but he gets it exactly right in this clip.”

Now, you might say, how does he process the fact that some leftward outlets, such as Piers Morgan, the Washington Post, The Week, Slate and now even David Frum have admitted it was not heckling?  Well, because they were bullied into it, not because they looked at the evidence and decided that “damn it, that Malkin chick is right.”*  Yes, really:

The right wing pro-gun cult swung into high gear yesterday to defend the hecklers at that Newtown hearing; practically every wingnut blogger was shouting in unison that there was no “heckling” — the people who interrupted Neil Heslin’s testimony were simply “answering his question.” They’ve actually managed to bully some media people into swallowing this line of BS[.]

Oh My... O’Donnell Gets Desperate to Protect the Non-Heckling Story (And Charles Johnson Goes the Full Dan Rather)

This video has to be watched to be believed.  As you have seen yesterday and this morning, the Heslin non-heckling story is proving to be Chirstmas... in January.  Lawrence O’Donnell has resorted to Desperate Liberal Trick #423: redefine ordinary words to fit an agenda.  In this case, he comes up with his own definition of “heckle” to argue that indeed Heslin was heckled.  Witness the dishonesty:

Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

So according to O’Donnell, heckling is “when you shout something stupid from the audience.”

Well, in fact that is not what Webster’s dictionary says on the subject defining the term as “to harass and try to disconcert with questions, challenges, or gibes : badger.”  And if you google the definition, you get this, in relevant part: “Interrupt (a public speaker) with derisive or aggressive comments or abuse.”  And really, if saying something stupid is heckling, what does O’Donnell do every day for a living?

In the meantime, we get reports that MSNBC is reviewing the newer, slightly fuller version of the video to see if it is unfairly edited.  And indeed, it shows that even the Washington Post is not buying this bull.  In Erik Wemple’s piece, he not only agrees that no hecking occurred, he puts his finger exactly on what is deceptive in the second video they have posted to their website:

Allergic to Bull Gets Results!

So yesterday I wrote a post discussing the Sandy Hook Dad Heckling Hoax®, and as I suggested toward the end, I had found the twitter handles of two of the most egregious article writers.  One of them, Jane C. Timm, tweets at @janestreet, so I decided to ask her some penetrating questions…

No, I made some inciteful criticism...

No, screw it.  I heckled her:

Hey, @janestreet do you think your article on the the so-called hecking of Heslin is accurate? allergic2bull.blogspot.com/2013/01/the-ne… cc @michellemalkin
— Aaron Worthing (@AaronWorthing) January 30, 2013

By the way, @twitter, I am not liking the newly pinched version of embedding tweets.  Seriously, it sucks.

The Newtown Non-Heckling: News Media Lied, Credibility Died!

A while back Juan Williams put down Michelle Malkin by saying she was not a real journalist, but rather “just a blogger.”  It is interesting about her that she didn’t point out that she was also a syndicated columnist who did excellent work in that area.  Instead she said (paraphrase), “yeah, I am just a blogger.  So what?  There is nothing wrong with that.”

And today, she and the mere bloggers at Twitchy have proven to be better journalists than people who traditionally wear that hat.

See, yesterday the pro-gun-control crowd lit up with the story of a grieving father who was “heckled” by pro-gun activists during testimony in the Connecticut General Assembly.  It starts with Neil Heslin, a man who any human being should feel compassion for.  His son, Jesse Lewis, was six when was murdered in the Sandy Hook massacre.  I don’t think most ordinary people can even imagine the inconsolable grief he must feel, even more than a month later.  I disagree with him on what the appropriate response is to this massacre, but I have nothing but compassion for his loss.

A Humble Suggestion: The Twitchy Awards

I had a brain storm today when I was trimming my beard for a great idea of Michelle Malkin’s Twitchy site: the Twitchy Awards.  A yearly award for the best on twitter, maybe with an actual ceremony, maybe not.  Maybe call it the “Weinies” in honor of Congressman Weiner’s twitter-induced meltdown, and you could give out little statue versions of their logo.  You know, this bird in Malkin's shoulder:

 And then I came up with a number of categories, some mocking, some rewarding intentional humor, some serious.  Like there could be “funniest tweet,” “dumb celebrity tweet of the year” (intense competition there), “creepiest tweet,” “most incoherent tweet” (Scott Brown’s recent possible drunk tweeting might win), “Best Breaking News Tweeting,” “Best Organizing on Twitter” (the recent establishment of #TGDN to defend twitterers from block and report abuse would seem a shoo-in for that one), “Best Talking Back to a Celebrity,” and probably a whole bunch of better categories I haven’t thought of.

Oh, and "Tweet of the Year."  And there is only one tweet I could think of for that:

Mitt Romney's first tweet on 9/11: twitter.com/MittRomney/sta… Barack Obama's: twitter.com/BarackObama/st…
— Kevin Eder (@keder) September 11, 2012

Since this embed doesn't show it, what he is linking to is this:

On this most somber day, America is united under God in its quest for peace and freedom at home and across the world.
— Mitt Romney (@MittRomney) September 11, 2012

and this:

The election is in 8 weeks. Sign up to volunteer: OFA.BO/s3tXFz
— Barack Obama (@BarackObama) September 11, 2012

Over 7,000 retweets and counting, folks.  (On the other hand, Obama won, didn't he?  So maybe being classless pays.)

So if Michelle Malkin or someone on Twitchy’s staff reads this, what do you say?

No… wait… according to BrettKimberlin I control the entire internet including what Michelle Malkin writes.  So this is no longer a suggestion.  This is a command!  Obey!  Obey!

Always be happy warrior, folks.

The NLRB Decision and the Step to Tyranny That Was Thwarted

There has been some talk about the big NLRB decision that came down last week, but too much of the coverage got lost in the minutae of the ruling.  Too many thought the issue was about the technicalities of when the Senate was in recess.

No, it is not.  It was about safeguarding a major constitutional protection against tyranny.

Let’s start with the text of the Constitution itself.  It starts with the appointments clause, which states that the President

shall nominate, and by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, shall appoint Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls, Judges of the supreme Court, and all other Officers of the United States, whose Appointments are not herein otherwise provided for, and which shall be established by Law[.]

There’s another clause allowing for “inferior Officers” to be appointed by the President or people in the executive or judicial branch.  Which is why if you want to be a receptionist in a courthouse, you don’t have to be confirmed by the Senate.  But still for the upper eschelon of public officials, Supreme Court Justices, and so on, this is the general rule.  If you want the job, you have to be nominated by the President and Confirmed by the Senate.

But there is also an exception:

Obama Will Do Anything to Save A Life (Except Banning Infanticide)

I have resisted the urge, for the most part, to compare the issues of the Second Amendment to abortion.  Often conservatives, when confronted with liberals who claim to be deeply concerned for the lives of children, will say something to the effect of “sure, as long as they are born.”  And certainly if you accept the premise that a fetus is a child at any point prior to birth, this is a valid point.  Allowing a person the right to bear arms, only “causes” murder when a third party—the criminal—chooses to use it to do so.  By contrast, the very point of an abortion is to intentionally kill* a living thing.  So if you believe a fetus is a person at any point prior to birth, the contrast makes sense.

The problem with that argument is that it only justifies your position.  And indeed, it doesn’t even justify it so much as say, “well, I am not as bad as you.”  I prefer to positively explain why private guns ownership is good, rather than why keeping one is not as bad as something else. And if the other person does not accept the premise that a fetus is a person, if they believe that an abortion does not end the life of a person, then the argument gets you nowhere.  To a pro-choice type, saying, “I support the Second Amendment but oppose abortion,” is a bit like saying, “I support the Second Amendment but oppose stepping on ants.”  I am not saying that this view is correct, but it is widely held and you have to deal with that.

Which is not to say that there is never any point in making that comparison.  The other day someone told me that they thought the Second Amendment should be disregarded while Roe v. Wade should be upheld.  So this person wished to hold sacrosanct a right that was not in the Constitution, while denigrating a right that was actually written in it.  That kind of contradiction is easy to point out and pillory a person with and maybe if you make the person feel sufficiently ridiculous, they might re-examine their position.

And for that matter if a person is pro-abortion and admits that a fetus is alive, then feel free to pillory them on that point as well.  Consider, for instance, Mary Elizabeth Williams; essay yesterday So What if Abortion Ends Life?  In it she admits that human life begins at conception, but abortion is fine and dandy regardless.  Let me share some of her wisdom:

The District of Columbia Demonstrates Why Women Must Be Allowed Have Guns (Part 3 of a 3 Part Series)

In Part 1, I talked about how Joseph Morrissey, a Virginia Delegate’s checkered past suggests he should not be allowed to own a gun.  In Part2, I showed how a Virginia Supreme Court case where he was found to have behaved corruptly demonstrated how women in Virginia needed the right to bear arms—because there is no guarantee they will get impartial justice at the hands of the commonwealth or indeed any state.  But Virginia women are lucky, because they can easily obtain a handgun.

Women in the District of Columbia are not so lucky.  And you are about to find out that their need is even more dire.  From the Guardian:

Washington police accused of 'disturbing' failures to investigate rape

Human Rights Watch to publish report that shows some victims experience fresh trauma from police neglect in rape cases

Police in Washington DC frequently fail to investigate reports of rape, and treat victims so dismissively at times, that they experience fresh trauma while the chances of the perpetrator being caught are undermined, according to a comprehensive report due out next week.

Campaign group Human Rights Watch is expected to uncover "disturbing evidence of police failure" in a 200-plus page report after a two-year investigation into law enforcement practices in the US capital.

But although shocking, the situation in Washington is far from isolated. There are widespread examples across the US of the police routinely neglecting crimes of sexual violence and refusing to believe victims.

"This is a national crisis requiring federal action. We need a paradigm shift in police culture, because rapes and sexual assaults are being swept under the rug, and too many victims are being bullied," said Carol Tracy of the Women's Law Project, a legal advocacy group that specialises in sexual violence cases.

Human Rights Watch began looking into the situation in Washington after discovering evidence that the city's Metropolitan police department (MPD) were refusing even to document a significant number of reports of sexual assaults coming in from the central hospital where victims are treated.

Full details and statistics will be disclosed by HRW in its final report, due to be published on 24 January.

Former Prosecutor Joseph Morrissey Demonstrates Why Women Must Be Allowed To Have Guns (Part 2 of a 3 Part Series)

One of the most compelling moral arguments for allowing guns for ordinary self-defense—even if that isn’t the primary purpose of the Second Amendment but an ancillary benefit of the right to bear arms that it protects—is that it allows those who are physically weaker to protect themselves.  Now I do recognize that some women are physically stronger than some men.  But most women are not stronger than most men and a gun makes sense for them.  Indeed one of the more powerful arguments on this point was presented by a fellow tweeter, writing in response to some dumb gay-baiting by @bravestnewworld:

@bravestnewworld I hated guns & had pepper spray. I was brutally raped - spray did nothing. I have a gun now. @doughall20 @aaronworthing
— Dagan K (@dagank4) January 13, 2013

I mean, what do you even say to that, besides what I did say, which was how sorry I was that it happened to her?  I am reluctant to even share it, even though it was said publicly, but I think on balance she is saying something that women need to hear: pepper spray is not enough and neither is self-defense classes.  Get over your fear of guns and get one.

Likewise, there may be disabled persons who can hold their own in a fist fight, but it is wrong to expect the physically handicapped to rely on their physical prowess alone to defend themselves.  Which is not to say all handicapped persons should be allowed to carry a gun, but those who can operate one safely should be allowed to.

Those who would take away all guns, would leave those people at the mercy of the state to protect them.  In most cases, the power of the state—represented by the police—will not arrive until it is too late to prevent the crime.  So there can only be the hope of punishment—carried out by the police in cooperation with the prosecutors—and the hope of certainty of punishment as a deterrent.

Which is exactly where Joseph Morrissey comes in, as former Commonwealth’s Attorney.  That is what we in Virginia call a District Attorney.  In my last post, I argued that he was a living argument for tighter gun laws, a man of such volatile character that reasonable people can be quite concerned when he brandishes a gun in a public place.

But in another case, Morrisseey v. Virginia State Bar, as a Commonwealth Attorney, he demonstrated one of the most powerful arguments in favor of allowing ordinary people to own guns: because you cannot expect the state to enforce the law impartially, all the time.  Bear in mind, according to the disciplinary report I cited in the last post, this case resulted in him being charged with bribery and although that charge was dismissed, what you are about to read will make you think maybe he should have been convicted.

Anti-Gun Virginia Delegate Joseph Morrissey Demonstrates the Insufficiency of Our Gun Laws By Making You Wonder Why He is Allowed to Carry a Gun (Part 1 of a 3 Part Series)

I often say God Bless Virginia because they made it very easy to get a gun when I needed one (due to my year-long saga of harassment at the hands of Brett Kimberlin and his associates).  I had to pass a background check, etc., but once I gave the dealer the money, they gave me my handgun.

But there are still gun grabbers even in my great state, including Delegate Joe Morrissey, who made news the other day brandishing an AK-47 on the floor of the House of Delegates.  You can watch video footage of it here:

If It’ll Save One Life...

That’s a refrain that I hear from anti-gun types now and then.  For instance here is a tweet Piers Morgan wrote the other day:

And if these measures stop one mass shooting, or save one child's life, it's worth it. #SandyHook #GunControlNow
— Piers Morgan (@piersmorgan) January 15, 2013

Well, that all sounds nice, but it is ultimately childish thinking.  Adults recognize that we often choose to value other things over safety all the time.

For instance, take cars.  Cars kill far more people each year than guns, but no one would seriously talk about banning them.  But why not?  We could limit car ownership to emergency services (police, fire departments, EMT’s and so on), entities for whom automobile transportation more than likely saves lives on balance, and automobiles for the delivery of goods (such as groceries to the store or mail to your mailbox) and then everyone else?  Well, you will just have to ride a bike or walk.  If it would save one life, or indeed save one child’s life, isn’t it worth it?

Friday Frivolity: Time Warner Cable Announces That They Will No Longer Show “Gun Ads”

Of course what they mean by “gun ads” is explained as follows:

"We no longer accept ads showing semi-automatic weapons and guns pointed at people," Time Warner Cable said in a statement. "We stand by this policy. If it's essential to a business owner to show this kind of imagery in their commercials, there are other advertising options in the marketplace."

This was all in response to Sandy Hook.  So does that mean that Warner itself is going to re-cut own its ads?  Just as a sampling, I went over to their official website and browsed the trailers for their movies that are presently in theaters.  First up was Gangster Squad.  One thing to note is that there is a ton of non-gun violence.  Right in the beginning, for instance, you see a number of people burned alive, but not shot—so thank God for that, right?  And maybe you don’t see Sean Penn pointing a gun at a person, but he is pointing it at someone.

One split second later, he shoots.  So this is a kill shot.

And we have machine guns shooting at police cars (with officers inside).  You can see the gun in a blur on the far left:

Piers Morgan Doesn’t like the First Amendment, Either

I have long jokingly said to liberals that it usually is not effective advocacy against the Second Amendment to demonstrate a complete disdain for the First.  As I have argued repeatedly the primary reason why the Second Amendment exists is to secure our God-given right of rebellion as a last defense against tyranny. This is not to say we are going to need to rebel tomorrow, but constitutional provisions are aimed at the long term, not the temporary emergencies of the day.

In other words, if you are going to take away our guns—which we see as a major defense against tyranny—it would help your argument considerably if you didn’t advocate for other tyrannical measures, such as compromising the First Amendment.  And Piers Morgan, who has turned his low-rated interview program into a slightly higher-rated low-rated advocacy program by turning it into the “Piers Morgan anti-gun hour” has done exactly that: advocating against the First Amendment.  He has advocated for the suppression of speech both by criticizing Citizens United and advocating for the criminalization of criticizing the government.

Let’s start with Citizens United.  This is a landmark ruling by the Supreme Court affirming Freedom of Expression.  One of my earliest posts at this site, Freedom of Expression is For Everyone (Even Those You Don’t Like), still presents a good summary of the case and the arguments in favor of that decision (and shows you my dedication to a principle I have literally gone to jail for).  I won’t quote my whole piece but some parts are worth quoting extensively:

Sorely missing from most critiques of [the Supreme Court’s ruling in Citizens United] are the facts, probably because they are devastating to their argument. Citizens United made a movie called Hillary: The Movie, allegedly a 90 minute infomercial against Hillary Clinton, who was then seeking to become president. Citizens wanted to advertise for its movie, but the FEC stated that it could not, because they held that the advertisements were tantamount to electioneering by urging against the election of a candidate, and as a corporation Citizens was forbidden from electioneering close to elections.

“But wait,” I hear you say, “didn’t all those news stories say this was about campaign expenditures?” Well, this is where the media has been incredibly disingenuous on this topic. The FEC said that they could not purchase advertising. So you can judge for yourself whether this sounds more like a mere restriction on spending, or a restriction on freedom of expression.

And that knocks down one argument arrayed against this decision: “money is not speech.” It lays bare that if you can’t spend money, your ability to speak will be severely limited.

What Does it Mean that Dr. King Applied for a Concealed Carry Permit?

The other day I drove a liberal fairly crazy by pointing out that Martin Luther King, Jr. applied for—and was refused—a concealed carry permit.  It descended into self-parody when this young man supposedly defending the legacy of Martin Luther King started attacking me for being white—the double irony being that he didn’t even know what color I was at that point, he was just making an assumption.

But it got me to thinking.  I had cited this article at the Huffington Post many times:

One issue on everyone's mind this Martin Luther King Jr. day was gun control. King's calls for resolving our differences through peaceful nonviolence are especially poignant after Jared Loughner gunned down six people and wounded several others in Tucson. Amid the clamor for new gun laws, its appropriate to remember King's complicated history with guns.

Most people think King would be the last person to own a gun. Yet in the mid-1950s, as the civil rights movement heated up, King kept firearms for self-protection. In fact, he even applied for a permit to carry a concealed weapon.

A recipient of constant death threats, King had armed supporters take turns guarding his home and family. He had good reason to fear that the Klan in Alabama was targeting him for assassination.

William Worthy, a journalist who covered the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, reported that once, during a visit to King's parsonage, he went to sit down on an armchair in the living room and, to his surprise, almost sat on a loaded gun. Glenn Smiley, an adviser to King, described King's home as "an arsenal."

On the Application of Godwin’s Law in Gun Debates

So one retort that I hear now and then when I bring up the Nazi experience when discussing guns is Godwin’s law.  Like anything that goes into the vernacular the term “Godwin’s law” is a little fuzzy around the edges.  The most commonly understood version of it was that whoever invokes Hitler or the Nazis automatically loses the argument.  And sometimes it is expanded to other contexts.  Like I think if you invoke slavery too fast, it has a similar quality.

But there are exceptions to this.  For one thing, if shoe really, really fits, it’s kosher (e.g. here and here).

And I think there is another exception that applies, as outlined here:

When talking about protection against tyranny, there is no such thing as Godwin's law. @garethjonesgb @rangersg @piersmorgan @nra
— Aaron Worthing (@AaronWorthing) January 13, 2013

(And as a point of fact, I wasn't citing Alex Jones.  I was citing the historical fact that the Jews of Warsaw held off the Nazis with guns longer than the entire nation of Poland, a point made by many people.  If Jones said it, it was just a case of a broken clock being right two times a day.)

But my point about the invalidity of Godwin's law is especially true when talking about Constitutional protections.  One major reason why the Constitution is written the way it is, is to prevent the rise of tyranny.  And yes, tyranny can be done by the majority.  Now some of the way this is done is just by the checks and balances inherent in the structure of the system.  If the only way you get anything done is to convince both houses of Congress, to either convince the President or override his veto, and then to convince the Supreme Court it is not unconstitutional, then the chances of a tyrannical law being passed is lowered considerably.  That is the major theme of Federalist #10.

NRA Game a Hoax?

Via Outside the Beltway, we get this at a New York Times Blog:

I’ve been in touch with Reggie Pierce, the CEO of a company called IP Lasso, which chases down counterfeit web content on behalf of brand-name clients. The National Rifle Association is not a client, but the folks at IP Lasso saw the news splash and decided something felt “a little fishy,” Pierce said. And so they ran some diagnostics. For one thing, nothing in the iTunes listing of the Target Practice app named the National Rifle Association. It just uses the initials – NRA – which Pierce said is a common way counterfeiters get around trademarks. Other NRA-related apps use the full name of the organization. They also feature a logo slightly different from the one on Target Practice. These and other indicators convinced Pierce that NRA: Target Practice is either a hoax aimed at embarrassing the NRA (not that the NRA needs much help) or, more likely, a publicity stunt by the developer of the app (which, to avoid rewarding the company, I will not name here.)

IP Lasso called the CEO of the app developer and the NRA, and both refused to discuss the subject. Pierce was puzzled that the NRA hasn’t disowned the app if in fact it is a hoax. Maybe it’s because the next question would be, “Do you think marketing a shooting app for preschoolers is a good idea right now?” And the NRA doesn’t have an easy answer for that one.

Hey, James O’Keefe! I Want Credit!

The other day I shared some of the rude tweets I directed at Gawker’s John J Cook for doxxing lawful gun owners in New York City.  Here’s one I left out:

Btw, @johnjcook do you hang a sign outside of your front door guaranteeing that you are unarmed? inquiring minds and all that.
— Aaron Worthing (@AaronWorthing) January 8, 2013

And when I complained that prison officials learned that the prisoners were using the Journal News’ list to threaten their guards, I debated it with a one random person online saying this:

Btw I assume you put a sign outside your house tellingburglars you are unarmed, right? @homework_liker @virgiltexas
— Aaron Worthing (@AaronWorthing) January 8, 2013

And I had a similar debate with another person who defended the practice generally:

would you hang a sign outside your house declaring yourself to be unarmed? @dcslim @rmjw48 @nytjim @huffingtonpost #GUNCONTROLNOW #NoWayNRA
— Aaron Worthing (@AaronWorthing) December 29, 2012

So to my shock and horror, I see that James O’Keefe III has ripped me off!

Good News: The Cake’s Alright

That might sound like anonsensical title, but it refers to a nice girl who goes by the name @sevenlayercake on Twitter.  I had followed her for a while, conversed nowand then.  She seemed like a smart andcool person.

By way of biography, she is inher 20’s and a single mom, dealing with all of that.  And then there was something she was holdingback.  The first sign of trouble was onJanuary 6.  I didn’t see this until afterthe fact, but I will mostly let it speak for itself:

Over and over againit's reaffirmed that I'm a pathetic and worthless person that no one will everput themselves out there for.
— sevenlayercake(@sevenlayercake) January 7, 2013

First time in twoand a half years -- since leaving my ex -- I let myself be vulnerable tosomeone and got exactly what I deserved.
— sevenlayercake(@sevenlayercake) January 7,2013

I mean, really, Iwas enough of an idiot to believe him the zillion times he told me he was goingto leave his wife for me.
— sevenlayercake (@sevenlayercake)January 7,2013

I believed all thatshit about him wanting to be with me, about him wanting to be in Cupcake'slife. He even booked a flight to see me.
— sevenlayercake(@sevenlayercake) January 7,2013

My (Quick) Review of the New NRA Game

In my last post I mentioned the infamously bad video game licensed by the NRA called NRA Gun Club.  To make it quick it sounds like all you do is take allegedly authentic guns to the range and shoot them.  Which is allegedly as boring as it sounds.

Well, God help us, there is a sequel.  It’s called NRA Practice Range.  I don’t know if it is available for more than the iPhone, but there you go.

First the good news.  It’s free.  You don’t have to pay a single red cent to own this thing, although you will have to pay money to unlock additional guns (you start with three).

Now the bad news.  It’s overpriced.  Get it?  Because it’s free?

Look I am not hostile to the NRA.  And at first blush this sounded like something that would be okay for a free app.  But no, this is so bad, I am deleting it the moment I am done with this review.  It’s literally not worth the space on your device.

The basic set up is very simple.  You can shoot at an indoor range, and outdoor range and skeet shooting.  The indoor range is now moderately famous because you shoot targets that look like this (see left).

That is from the indoor range, and idiot Think Progress claimed these were coffin-shaped targets.  I don’t know if the author, Annie-Rose Stasser is ignorant, or she just knows her audience is ignorant, but here’s a hint: coffins don’t actually look like that.  They’re just targets, done in a vaguely human fashion because you are practicing to defend yourself.

By the way, as an aside, in the comments to this Think Regress article, they were deeply horrified and offended by the idea.  Then they launched into murder fantasies (while accusing the NRA of hypocrisy, no less).  One wrote:

Would an Assault Weapon Ban Violate the First Amendment?

Now, you might think for a second that is a typo.  “Wait, Aaron,” you might say, “don’t you mean the Second Amendment?”

Well, that is the more direct concern, but there is also, believe it or not a First Amendment, freedom of expression, concern.  But that takes a bit of explanation.

First, have you ever played a video game where there was a lot of driving involved?  Did you ever notice something funny with the cars?

For instance, I enjoy the Grand Theft Auto franchise.  As you might know, the game lets you steal any car you want and when you do, you see a quick display on the screen telling you the name of the car you just stole.  They are great vehicles like the sporty Banshee, the muscle car Sabre, the classy Admiral, and the SUV Cavalcade.

What?  You never heard of those cars?  Well, that’s because they don’t exist in the real world.  Of course allegedly they resemble real cars.  Take the Banshee.  It looks like this...

EXCLUSIVE: The Original Draft of the Second Amendment!

Now around here we don’t do a lot of original reporting (and by “we,” I mean me, a lone writer).  I mean there is that whole Brett Kimberlin thing, but you get what I am saying.  What I tend to do is take items in the news and put my own analysis on it, bringing in knowledge that is out there, but sometimes is a little obscure.

Well, this is another exception.  That’s right this is original reporting and as with the last time, this is kind of a blockbuster.  You see a few months ago I was walking in my neighborhood doing (I live in Northern Virginia) and I noticed something poking up out of the dirt.  I got curious and so I dug it up a little more and saw it as some kind of wooden box.  When I saw the date on it, 1789, I immediately called George Mason University’s History Department.  I mean I was a History major, but it’s not like I was trained to recover artifacts, if it was indeed genuine.  And needless to say I was pretty skeptical.  I was able to obtain the help of Professor Cynthia A. Kierner, and frankly she did most of the work fully excavating it, and then cleaning it up and opening it.  Inside was a series of pages that she immediately recognized as a pair of letters written the secret code that James Madison and Thomas Jefferson used when communicating with each other.

You see, you may not know this, but mail wasn’t very secure back then, so Jefferson and Madison (and others) used a code when communicating.  That way if their correspondence was intercepted, they would still be the only ones who could read it.  A little more analysis revealed that this was indeed correspondence between Jefferson and Madison, a pair of letters, discussing the proposed Bill of Rights.  When she told me that, you could have knocked me over with a feather.  I kept saying, “for real?” like a dork.  But indeed, she even ran carbon dating and verified that it was written in the time period.  It appeared to be genuine, which made my history geek heart go all a flutter.

And Dr. Kierner was kind enough to translate the code and found that the letters were previously unrecorded!  No one had ever seen these before!  So this was a real find, folks!  And she was willing to let me break some of the most interesting news coming from this at my site.  So as they say:

EXCLUSIVE: MUST CREDIT ALLERGIC TO BULL!

The first letter was dated February 5, 1789 and it was from Jefferson to Madison.  It starts with the usual introduction and then gets to the meat of things:

It is good, James, that you have come around to my view that this new Constitution needs a Bill of Rights.  And it should be a great improvement over the English Bill of Rights, because it will be part of the Constitution, and thus enjoy additional protection from the judicial department as such.  I have also applied my mind to the task of writing a provision to protect the right to bear arms.  This should probably be inserted into the original constitution itself, in the first article, in the ninth section, wherein explicit limitations on the powers of Congress are already contained.

I should break in here a moment and note that originally the plan was to actually insert these amendments into the constitution itself so that it would literally read differently than it did before.  But somewhere along the way, they instead adopted the plan of tacking the new provisions on to the end.  Some of the founders thought this would imply some kind of denigration of those amendments, an inferiority to the original Constitution, but I don’t think that fear has been borne out and it would have been too weird if suddenly the very text of the Constitution itself was officially changed, instead of added on to as is the practice.  It would be anachronistic to say it would feel Orwellian, but that is definitely where my queasiness comes from.

Jefferson goes on:

I believe that this proposed language has the best chance of making it clear to future generations what this amendment means and why it is so important.  I fear that our children or our grandchildren, not having felt the yolk of tyranny will not understand it as we do, and so I hope to impart our wisdom to them.

After all, this is what the Constitution is about.  It is about passing on what we have learned to generations untold so they can better protect themselves from all dangers this nation might face.

And then the really cool part.  Jefferson provided his proposed text.  But let me save it for the end, and get to the second letter.

The second letter, dated March 27, was from Madison to Jefferson.  After the usual greetings, asking how he was doing (and do I get the feeling he wants to ask about Sally Hemmings and it is just too awkward?  An interesting hypothesis that I expect Dr. Kierner to explore), Madison responds to Jefferson’s draft.  He wrote:

I think the first sentence is very good.  But the second sentence...  doesn’t this go without saying, Thomas?  I mean if future generations do not understand it, then they are truly lost.  It means that they have not only failed to read the Constitution, but the Declaration of Independence, too, or to understand even in a most elementary way how our nation came to be free and independent.  If the people of the several states should ever be that lost, a few extra words in the Constitution isn’t going to do them that much good.

And really, Thomas, was that last word necessary?  It is beneath the dignity of this document.

Still the first sentence is very good, and I will probably borrow significantly from it when I make the proposal this coming May before Congress.

Which I can imagine is leaving you with breathless anticipation.  What did the first sentence say that he liked?  What did the second sentence say that he decided to chuck?

Well, without any more ado and exclusive to this site, from the first letter, Jefferson’s original proposed draft of what became the Second Amendment, after the break:

BREAKING: Miss America’s Response in the Q&A Part Was Dumber Than Usual (Updated With Corrections And Video)

Update: Egg on my face, it was Miss America, not Miss USA.  This can be chalked up to the complete lack of caring I have on this point.  I haven’t watched one of these in years.  The post has been changed appropriately.  And I forgot to link to the USA Today article I got it from.  So now I have.  While I am at it, I will add this embed of the actual moment when she answered the question.

With a little more time to reflect I think either she got very nervous, or she really is a stunning ditz.  Like I said, this is not even about gun control.  This is about believing in no law enforcement at all.

Which is again very hypocritical, given her pageant is protected by armed guards.

The original post resumes, with appropriate changes.

Once, in a funny but otherwise pointless movie called Liar, Liar, Jim Carrey asked an important philosophical question:

Where Would Tina Turner Be Right Now if She'd Rolled Over and Said, Hit Me Again, Ike!

In case you can’t listen, the line is: “Where would Tina Turner be right now if she'd rolled over and said, ‘Hit me again, lke, and put some stank on it’?”

It’s funnier if you listen to it, or better yet, watch.

Of course even the dimmest Hollywood type recognized that there is a right to defend yourself.

But not so with Miss New York, crowned tonight as Miss America.  For research purposes, this is what she looks like:

Aaron Walker v. Gavon Aronsen, Round 2!

So earlier today, I took apart a Mother Jones article by Gavon Aronsen saying it was like totally bogus to bring up Hitler when talking about gun control.  I particularly thought the part when he let an academic claim it was good for the Jews not to have guns was particularly lame.

And as is often the case, if someone writes a particularly lame article and they happen to have a twitter account, I let them know in a kind and respectful way:

So, @garonsen you think the Jews of Germany BENEFITTED from being disarmed? allergic2bull.blogspot.com/2013/01/mother… #guncontrol #guncontrolnow #nowaynra
— Aaron Worthing (@AaronWorthing) January 11, 2013

Okay, okay, I heckle them.  So it started with me having a lot of fun at his expense.

More Historical Bull on the Second Amendment

Here’s another lovely piece from the left resorting to distortions and outright lies in an attempt to justify destroying the right to bear arms.  It is a common trope of the left to pretend, for instance, that the Second Amendment is purely about militias.

Let’s pull up that amendment’s language, shall we?

A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.

So what anti-gun liberals do here, is they say that the militia clause limits the right to bear arms.  Now Justice Scalia does a masterful job of ripping it apart in D.C. v. Heller, but let me give you a smaller sample.  In my eyes it is obvious that the militia clause in an inoperative preamble—that is pretty words inserted into the amendment to explain why they give a crap, but not meant to limit the rest of it.  After all, if they wanted to limit the right to bear arms to those in a militia, wouldn’t it say something more like this?

The right of the people to keep and bear Arms, in a well regulated Militia, shall not be infringed.

Mother Jones: Disarming Jews in Nazi Germany Was a Good Thing!

That headline sounds like it has to be an exaggeration, but read on.  They did say it was a good thing, and they did mean it was a good thing for the Jews. 

So this morning I find out that Mother Jones published a piece called Was Hitler Really a Fan of Gun Control?  The dissembling involved is nothing less than spectacular.  So let’s fisk this sucker:

Near the outset of his rant on Piers Morgan Tonight on Monday, conspiracy peddler Alex Jones warned that the Second Amendment is all that stands between democracy and dictatorship. "Hitler took the guns, Stalin took the guns, Mao took the guns, Fidel Castro took the guns, Hugo Chavez took the guns, and I'm here to tell you, 1776 will commence again if you try to take our firearms!" he screamed.

So liberal gun-grabbing move #1: pretend that Alex Jones is representative of all conservatives, or gun owners, or something.  Bill Ayers—in whose house our current President kicked off his political career—is not considered a typical Democrat, but Alex Jones who did this to Michelle Malkin...

In Which I have Waaaay Too Much Fun With Al Sharpton on Gun Control...

After I wrote my post mockingBill Clinton and Al Sharpton for supporting gun control, I wondered to myself: hey, does Al Sharpton have a twitter account?

Well, yes he does.  And I have long said that one of the fun things about twitter is it gives you the chance to talk back to famous people so... let the fun begin!

So @thereval you feel cops are often racist and break the law... and we should rely on them exclusively for protection? allergic2bull.blogspot.com/2013/01/we-nee…
— Aaron Worthing (@AaronWorthing) January 10, 2013

.@thereval you say that Brawley might've been telling the truth. Should she rely solely on the police for protection? allergic2bull.blogspot.com/2013/01/we-nee…
— Aaron Worthing (@AaronWorthing) January 10, 2013

Heck if you don’t believe Ms. Brawley, it might make sense to be armed.  Most police are good professional people who don’t care who they are protecting.  But she would have cause for rational concern that the police might be less inclined to protect her given her conduct in the past.  She might worry that if she was in danger she would have no one she could rely on but herself.

We Need Gun Control... Says Bill Clinton and Al Sharpton

Raw story has the story on Clinton, but we should be sympathetic.  I mean, if I pissed off as many husbands as he has over the years as he has, I wouldn’t want regular citizens to be armed, either.

Seriously, here’s a pro-tip for the anti-gun crowd.  Do not pick a man credibly accused of raping a woman as your spokesman for undermining individual self-defense as your advocate.  This is Dateline’s original item on Juanita Broadderick (Via MRC):

Indeed if you find her credible—and I do—this is the perfect argument for the Second Amendment, as applied to the states through the Fourteenth Amendment.  What do you have here?  You have Bill Clinton who was at the time the Attorney General of Arkansas.  They often refer to the attorney general as the top law enforcement official in a given state.  And this top law enforcement official was committing, allegedly, a crime.  And liberals want us to depend exclusively on law enforcement to protect our lives, our families and property?

The most absurd example of this is Al Sharpton (who is the most absurd examples of most things), who apparently wishes to ban all guns and maybe even knives (via Gatewaypundit):

Pathetic: Piers Morgan Brags About Being #1... at CNN

So I was checking what was going on in Gun Control Country and I saw this tweet by Piers Morgan:

No1 issue, No1 ratings: bit.ly/ZIN0Rd #GunControlNow #CNN
— Piers Morgan (@piersmorgan) January 10, 2013

So I said to myself, “that can’t be right.  He’s beating Fox?”

Well, no, he is excited about this story over at Mediaite:

Tuesday Ratings: Piers Morgan Beats All Of CNN In Total Viewers And Demo

On Tuesday night, Piers Morgan beat the rest of his CNN colleagues in both total viewership and the key 25-54 demo.

Racking up 225k demo viewers, Morgan beat out his next-highest-rated colleague in Anderson Cooper, who scored 209k demo viewers.

And in total viewership, Morgan garnered 797k viewers, beating out Cooper, who had 659k total.

WTF? Bill Clinton Wins Father of the Year?

So the National Father’s Day Council has declared Bill Clinton Father of the Year. Here’s some of their justification:

With the profound generosity, leadership and tireless dedication to both his public office and many philanthropic organizations, President Clinton exemplifies the attributes that we celebrate through the father of the year award.

Feel free to read the whole thing.  But I truly don’t get it.  Okay put aside politics, put aside his personal life, he doesn’t even have any dependent children?  Well, at least not that we know of.  I mean seriously, if they named Barack Obama father of the year I wouldn't bat an eyelash.  But Chelsea has left the nest years ago.  Shouldn’t a “father of the year” get the award by doing something at least somewhat fatherly?  Like it took me all of five seconds to find a much better example on google:

White House Threatening Executive Orders on Gun Control? (Update: Is It Fair to Compare Obama to Hitler?)

Update: Apparently a few people have their knickers in a twist over the comparison of Bush, opps I mean Obama to Hitler.  Yes, the same people who did compare Bush to Hitler endlessly, or just didn’t get too upset about that think this is soooo unfair.  Twitchy has the details.

As for me, taking guns away from the people is straight out of the dictator handbook.  So is usurping the authority from the legislative body.  Below I raise doubts as to whether Obama actually intends to step beyond the law, but if Obama does, it is rightfully considered a step in the direction of dictatorship and big one at that.  As Phineas says over at Sister Toldjah:

Seriously, if Obama and... Biden wanted to set off the alarms in the homes of every gun-owner and genuine liberal in America, they couldn’t have done a better job.

So is it Hitler-like?  Well, it’s more like baseline standard operating procedure for overthrowing any democracy—if what they are actually planning is to issue new gun control by “royal decree.”  That is why I predict revolution before if they dare to try it.  You might argue the image is over the top, but sometimes you need someone to raise the alarm.  It’s harsh, but not unfair.  Godwin’s law only applies to unfair comparisons.  If Obama is really planning what many suspect he is, it is an extremely fair comparison.

The original American Revolution was sparked when British Troops marched on Lexington and Concord to take away their guns.  Obama would do well to remember that.

The original post resumes.

--------------------------------------- 

 Well, that is what this and several other reports say floating around on the web.  Here’s the Weekly Standard:

Vice President Joe Biden revealed that President Barack Obama might use an executive order to deal with guns.

"The president is going to act," said Biden, giving some comments to the press before a meeting with victims of gun violence. "There are executives orders, there's executive action that can be taken. We haven't decided what that is yet. But we're compiling it all with the help of the attorney general and the rest of the cabinet members as well as legislative action that we believe is required."

Biden said that this is a moral issue and that "it's critically important that we act."

And this has a few people getting very worried.  For instance, Drudge is running this banner (via Insty):

What if David Gregory Was James Brinkley?

So yesterday we learned that David Gregory was not even arrested for his admitted violation of D.C.'s ban on high capacity magazines, but his file is with the US Attorney (which is a federal version of the District Attorney, more or less).  Emily Miller has a report on that here.  And she reminded us of the story of another man who violated D.C.’s ban on high-capacity magazines, James Brinkley.

 

Here’s what he looks like (see right):

And here’s what Miller said abouthis case:

On Sept. 8, Mr. Brinkley says he intended to drop his wife and young children at the White House for a tour and then head to a shooting range to practice for the U.S. Marshals Service test. Just like Mr. Gregory, Mr. Brinkley called MPD in advance for guidance on how he could do this legally. Mr. Brinkley was told that the gun had to be unloaded and locked in the trunk, and he couldn’t park the car and walk around.

Unlike Mr. Gregory, Mr. Brinkley followed the police orders by placing his Glock 22 in a box with a big padlock in the trunk of his Dodge Charger. The two ordinary, 15-round magazines were not in the gun, and he did not have any ammunition with him.

As he was dropping off his family at 11 a.m. on the corner of Pennsylvania Avenue, Mr. Brinkley stopped to ask a Secret Service officer whether his wife could take the baby’s car seat into the White House. The officer saw Mr. Brinkley had an empty holster, which kicked off a traffic stop that ended in a search of the Charger’s trunk. Mr. Brinkley was booked on two counts of “high capacity” magazine possession (these are ordinary magazines nearly everywhere else in the country) and one count of possessing an unregistered gun.

Surprising No One, Gawker is Claiming to Get Death Threats

[Note: None of the links I provide will take you to Gawker.  If you wish to boycott their site as I am—and have been long before this dustup—you are safe clicking on my links.]

Earlier today I pointed out that Gawker has joined in the doxxing game.  Well, it should surprise absolutely no one that they are getting death threats.  I won’t link to their crappy site, but here’s a quote from it:

At 4:25 p.m. today—just one hour and a quarter after we published this list of (publicly available, public records of) all of the gun owners in New York City (names, not addresses)—we received the phone call embedded above.

"You're fuckin dead," it says.

Not a very elaborate death threat, but a death threat nonetheless. (While we cannot rule out the possibility that the caller was a deranged fan of Miss Alabama, it's fair to assume this was related to the gun post.)

Also, a Gawker Media employee completely unconnected to the post in question received a phone call after the post went up telling her "You better look both ways when you leave the building" and "all of you better look both ways because you're going to get shot." The caller also said "every girl better have a boyfriend because you need someone to protect you."

The police have been contacted. These violent threats come as reaction to us publishing information that was already publicly available.

Against All Odds, The Story of Doxxing Gun Owners Gets Worse

As you know the Journal News chose to dox gun owners in several counties in New York.  I thought that the story reached rock bottom when we learned that convicts were using this to threaten prison guards, and one woman who had been the victim of stalking, who thought she had left her stalker behind, discovered that he had likely found her again using the map.  So how could the story get any worse?

Well, if it turned out the list wasn’t even accurate:

The intentions of the Journal News’ editorial board in publishing a highly controversial “interactive gun map” are further occluded by an inconvenient fact.

According to Rockland County Clerk Paul Piperato, in Rockland County a large number of the names and addresses on the map are not even correct.

Piperato said, “I’d figure about 25 percent of the addresses are not accurate.”

He explained that when persons change their address or pass away it is supposed to be reported to the County Clerk’s office, but the county  has no means to vigorously enforce this regulation. Thus pistol permit and other permit registries are not reliably accurate as a source of addresses in Rockland.

So for instance, imagine a convict doesn’t like how his guard is treating him.  So he slips a note to one of his homies on the outside to murder the man.  And to find him, they use this database to locate his house.  So then the break in, kill everyone inside…  and we find out later that this isn’t even the right house.

Oh My: Elizabeth Warren is Not Listed as a Native American on the Senate Website

As they have noted over at Buzzfeed, the Senate has recently updated its listing of Ethnic Diversity in the Senate.  For instance here is what they say about African American Senators:

African Americans:

Hiram R. Revels (R-Mississippi), 1870-71

Blanche K. Bruce (R-Mississippi), 1875-1881

Edward W. Brooke (R-Massachusetts), 1967-1979

Carol Moseley-Braun (D-Illinois), 1993-1999

Barack Obama (D-Illinois), 2005-2008

Roland Burris (D-Illinois), 2009-2010

Tim Scott (R-South Carolina), 2013-

Of course regular readers will recognize Mr. Revels from a piece I wrote a while back.  Sharp eyed readers will notice that Republicans have given us every single black southern senator, and the majority of black senators overall, proving how racist they are.  /sarcasm  And you will notice that since Tim Scott is listed there, it means it is up-to-date, including the new crop of elected Congresscritters.

Aren’t Efforts to Increase the Cost of Gun Ownership Racist?

You hear these proposals now and then.  Sometimes it is in the form of a tax, like a $100 tax on bullets.  Or sometimes it is more subtle like a claim that gun owners should have liability insurance.

I particularly love the idea of liability insurance.  Have you ever been in an accident and it wasn’t your fault?  A friend of mine once had a pretty ugly situation.  She was living in Charlotte at the time, where apparently people are genetically incapable of making a proper left turn.  I love Charlotte, but come on, Charlotteans, this is a real problem, a cultural glitch, and you need to work on this, okay?  You know how you are supposed to start in the left lane and end up in the left lane?  And if it is a double left turn, the one in the right-left turn is supposed to end up in the second most leftward lane, too.  Now I don’t have a beef with Charlotteans in general, but if you are ever in that town, do not expect people to do this properly.  If you are in a double left turn lane, and you are in the right left turn lane, expect the people in the left-left lane to end up in the wrong lane.  Plan for it and you won’t get hit.

But this friend was in the left-left lane and as she turned, the person in the right left turn lane crossed over into her lane and as a result they collided.  And then when the police came, the other driver and his buddy in the passenger seat said she crossed over the line and hit them.  Now she went and showed how the damage was more consistent with her version of events.  To the testimony of the other driver’s friend, she said, “of course he would say that, he’s his friend.”  Anyway, so the cops wrote it down as “undetermined” and the next thing she knew the other guys were claiming whiplash and so on.  And she went to the insurance company and told them to fight this, and they told her it wasn’t worth it and settled.  And her insurance went up, because of the other driver’s screw up.

The Fallout From Doxxing Gun Owners Continues

I knew this was trouble when the Journal News published the names of gun owners, including their names and addresses, but I admit I didn’t anticipate this.  You see, it turns out that many of the permit holders are cops who want to keep a piece when they are off duty, or even prison guards who maybe didn’t want their prisoners to know where they lived:

Inmates using newspaper's gun owner map to threaten guards, sheriff says

Law enforcement officials from a New York region where a local paper published a map identifying gun owners say prisoners are using the information to intimidate guards.

Rockland County Sheriff Louis Falco, who spoke at a news conference flanked by other county officials, said the Journal News' decision to post an online map of names and addresses of handgun owners Dec. 23 has put law enforcement officers in danger.

"They have inmates coming up to them and telling them exactly where they live. That's not acceptable to me," Falco said, according to Newsday.

Robert Riley, an officer with the White Plains Police Department and president of its Patrolman’s Benevolent Association, agreed.

"You have guys who work in New York City who live up here. Now their names and addresses are out there, too," he said adding that there are 8,000 active and retired NYPD officers currently living in Rockland County.